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The next few posts on this blog will be about updating everyone on upcoming Tangent Artists’ games and game accessories products. Last week, we shared pics of the Fate Accompli cards (which will go out the kickstarter backers first; after that, we’ll be selling them online!)

This week, we’re taking a look at the Guild Guides!

Q. What are the Guild Guilds?

A. The Guild Guides are a collection of humorous standalone books. Each book is inspired by a classic type of fantasy adventurer; our first guide was “The Handbook for Saucy Bards,” followed by “The Cleric’s Guide to Smiting.” In the next few months, we’ll be releasing, “The Rogue’s Guide: Steal This Tome.”

A. The books contain useful, system agnostic references for fantasy gamers; for example, a bard wanting to execute a Cutting Remark will find three convenient d20 charts for classic insults. Likewise, a gamer designing a cleric might enjoy our guide to blunt weapons, and the rogue’s book will contain a number of popular scams to run during your games. These are great for players running that specific class, or for GMs.

However, our goal is to make content that is entertaining to everyone: current gamers, gamers who are between campaign, and even people who’ve never played a roleplaying game. They’re kind of like “coffee table” books.

A. Each book is “written” by one of the characters in the Tangent Artist’s comic CRIT! (don’t worry, they’re still funny even if you don’t read the comics… though you should). Miles Rayner wrote the Bard Book himself, and is proud to let everyone know it. Morfindel the cleric is not the most verbose of characters, so he borrows a lot from his old textbooks, complete with his notes scribbled in the margins. Bart also steals heavily from a local watchman manual for the rogue book (which seems appropriate), although his comments in the margins are a lot less polite.

Q. What’s in the Bard Book and the Cleric’s Guide?

A. The bard’s book has such wonderful resources as: “an Elf, a Dwarf, and a Halfling walk into a Bar” jokes, simple rhymes for faking songs, and how to insult the Unfriendly (and Friendly) races of the fantasy world.

The cleric’s book includes: evil sigil bingo, fill-in-the-blank eulogies, and a guide to religious holidays (which you can use to get off work).

Coming Soon!

Q. What can we expect in the new Rogue’s Book?

A. Lots of fun content, including:

“What Type of Rogue Am I?” Personality Test

d20 charts for alibis and fake names

Scams

Guide to identifying rare metals and gems

List of Poisons

The original short story by Monica Marier, “Lipstick and Rogue”

And much more!

Q. What’s next?

A. By the end of the year, we hope to have digital versions of the three books available for eReaders- watch this spot for updates on when and where you’ll be able to download them.

If that weren’t enough, we’ve already started work on the Ranger’s book. The ranger book will be “written” by the CRIT’S cranky lead, Linus Weedwacker; expect it sometime in 2016-2017! We already have a few ideas on what will come after that, but we’d love to hear your suggestions. Warriors? Wizards? You decide!

It’s been busy at Tangent Artists, preparing the Fate Accompli material for the printers.

To double-dip a little bit, I thought I’d show off the rough draft for the Fate GM Screen that we plan to use as a bonus to our backers. Thus, this week we ask you to Screen a Little Screen for Me….

(Yeah, I know the old song was “Dream a little dream OF me,” but whatever…)

Fate Accompli Kickstarter Preview. Click Me!

Credit where credit is due: most of this rough draft is pulled from the amazing Fate Core GM Screen created by Jordan Dennis. Find it here at the Evil Hat Wiki page. Likewise, we’ve pulled a little from Richard Bellingham’s Action and Outcome Grid. The final screen will be put into our own words, but they are due a thanks in the final product none the less.

So, tell us: is there anything important we’re missing? Is there something you always wanted to see on a Fate GM screen that isn’t included in the following?

Full Defense – Instead of taking an action, gain +2 to Defense until your next turn. (p. 159)

Helping: Instead of taking an action, you may add +1 to a character’s skill (if you have Average +1 or higher in that skill). GM may place limits on how many characters may help (ex. a character with +3 cannot receive more than +3 from helpers). (FAE, p. 17):

Mitigating Damage (p.160)

Stress Box: Absorbs stress equal to box number (ex. 2 box absorbs 2).

When you suffer stress, do one of the following:

> Fill in one stress box greater than or equal to the value of an attack

> Take one or more consequences

>Fill in one stress box and take consequences

If you can’t do one of these three things, you’re taken out (does not automatically equal dead).

• Giving In: Give in before your opponent’s roll and you can control how you exit the scene. You earn one or more fate points for giving in (page 24).

Consequences (p. 162)

• Mild: -2 to attack value

• Moderate: -4 to attack value

• Severe: -6 to attack value

• Extreme: -8 to attack and permanent character aspect

When created, a Consequence has one free invoke which the opposition may use.

Recovery (p. 164)

• Mild: overcome Fair (+2), one whole scene

• Moderate: overcome Great (+4), one whole session.

• Severe: overcome Fantastic (+6), one whole scenario.

Aspect Types (p. 57)

• Game aspects: permanent, made during game creation

• Character aspects: permanent, made during character creation

• Situation aspects: last for a scene, until overcome, or until irrelevant

Warning: You can only spend one Fate Point per aspect per roll (i.e. cannot pay two fate points to invoke same aspect twice for +4).

Free invokes stack with a paid one and each other.

Compelling Aspects (p. 71) (FAE, p. 28):

Accept a complication for a fate point.

• Event-based: You have _____ aspect and are in _____ situation, so it makes sense that, unfortunately, _____ would happen to you. Damn your luck.

• Decision-based: You have _____ aspect in _____ situation, so it makes sense that you’d decide to _____. This goes wrong when _____ happens.

Refresh (p. 80)

At the start of a new session, you reset your fate points to your refresh rate. If you ended the last session with more points, you keep the extra. At the end of a scenario, you reset to your refresh rate no matter what.

Spending Fate Points (p. 80):

Spend fate points to:

• Invoke an aspect

• Power a stunt

• Refuse a compel

• Declare a story detail (new aspect, no free invokes) (FAE, p. 29):

Challenges (p.147)

• Each obstacle or goal that requires a different skill gets an overcome roll.

• Interpret failure, costs, and success of each roll to determine final outcome.

Contests (p. 150)

• Contesting characters roll appropriate skills.

• If you got the highest result, you score a victory.

• If you succeed with style and no one else does, then you get two victories.

• If there’s a tie for the highest result, no one gets a victory, and an unexpected twist occurs.

• The first participant to achieve three victories wins the contest.

Conflicts (p. 154)

Pre-Conflict
– Establish Scenic Aspects / Zones
– Roll for Turn Order – Notice / Quick for Physical Conflicts; Empathy / Careful for Mental or Social Conflicts
Conflict
Start the first exchange:
• On your turn, take an action and then resolve it.
• On other people’s turns, defend or respond to their actions as necessary.
• At the end of everyone’s turn, start again with a new exchange.
Conflict is over when everyone on one side has conceded or been taken out.
Post Conflict
> Concessions and Consequences – Agree on the terms of the concession, or the consequences for those taken out
>Remove any boosts or irrelevant situation aspects
>Recovery – Roll to recover appropriate consequences

Earning Fate Points (p. 81)

• Earn fate points when you:

• Accept a compel (get immediately)

• Have your aspects invoked against you (get at the end of the scene)

• Concede a conflict.

Setting Target numbers (FAE, p. 37)

• Easy Task: Mediocre (+0) – or success without a roll

• Moderately Difficult: Fair (+2)

• Extremely Difficult: Great (+4)

• Impossibly Difficult: Go as high as you think makes sense. The PC will need to drop some fate points and get lots of help to succeed, but that’s fine.

Despite my expectations, it would appear that the readership on this blog has increased since I started, (from “Holy cow, I have a reader!” to a staggering, “Holy Cow, I have readers [ plural]!”) I am surprised as the next person to find this out, and welcome any man, woman, or spambot that has wandered on to this site by mistake.

One of my more glamorous shots.

To round off the year, I thought I’d give a quick play-by-play of the posts this year, in case you missed any that might appeal to you.

JULY

So Much Time, So Little to Do – A breakdown of all of the Tangent Artist games we’re working. Since then, I’ve talked about… um… maybe a third of them. Yeah. Will have to tease you more about those next year.

Costume Clash – Behind the Scenes – I’m very pleased with this WIP game, and while it won’t be launched in 2015, we’ve definitely made a lot of progress with it this year. This article is also a fun glimpse at the creative process for all you creative types.

This week, I’m going to focus on translation. Certain rpgs, like Skeleton Crew (open playtesting starting soon!), require characters to translate a message from one language to another. If the researcher was perfect, you could just hand over the “translated” message in English exactly as you wrote it. However, perfection is boring, and PCs are seldom as skilled as they think they are. So, what are some ways you can mangle the message, but still make it feel like a translation?

Answer: Google Translate! Of course this requires an internet connection, and copy/paste is lot easier on a keyboard. However, with a little bit of goofing around, you can get great results.

The Message: As a test, I wanted something that had a few complex words; more important, if the words are put in the wrong order, it could mean the difference between life and death for a character. So, I borrowed a line from the classic movie, The Court Jester (which stars Danny Kaye, the mom from Mary Poppins, and a hot Angela Lansbury… yeah, you read that sentence right.) Here it is:

The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon, but the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.

MANGLING METHOD #1

The first way to mangle the phrase is to post the phrase in English, translate it into another language, and then retranslate the translated phrase back into English. For example:

If you paste the Spanish into the first box and translate it back into English, you get:

The pellet with the poison is in the jar with the dragon, but the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.

Now that you got the idea, I’ll just skip to the end result for different languages. I was really amazed how many translations came back perfectly (some even having the “Brew that is True” rhyme.) However, here are few more of the interesting results:

Urdu: Poison in the flagon with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true with the tablet.

Catalan – The pellet with the poison is in the jar with the dragon, but go with the pestle has the brew that is true .. (Not that different, but I found the fact that it added advice interesting)

Georgian – Precipitation venom in a flagon dragon, but the vessel with the pestle has the brew, that’s true .. (Interesting punctuation swap there).

Gujarati – Flagon with the dragon’s venom, but with the pestle has the brew that is true pellet with the ship .. (Where’d the ship come from?)

Haitian Creole – Lead is poisonous and in the flagon with the dragon, but the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true ..

Hungarian – The poison pellets in the pitcher of the dragon, but the ship breaks the brew that is true .. (Fluid sounding, but not quite right)

Igbo – The pellet with the poison from the flagon dragon, and utensils and pestle to make a beer that is true .. (Utensils and beer?)

Irish – The brew is truly the pellet with the poison in the flagon with the dragon but the vessel with the pestle .. (Right words, wrong order!)

Persian – The pellet with the poison is in the vessel with the pestle is the missing dragon tail that is true .. (This is flipped too! Bwah ha ha!)

Japanese – Poison of dragons, pellets of container and flagon with a pestle is have the brewing is true .. (The rhythm is almost a haiku.)

Korean – The pellet with the dragon the neck of the bottle of poison in a narrow; the pestle has the brew that corresponds to the vessel. (To contrast with Japanese, this feels like it came from a text book.)

Latvian – TheGranulu with poison years in the bottle with the dragon; thekuģis with the pestle has the brew that is true .. (The second part’s perfect, but the first part leaves you unsure what IS poisoned.)

Maori – Knead with the poison in the bottle against the dragon; the vessel to crush the silica is a true ..

Marathi – Flagon with the dragon of the poison in the paper; The vessel has a beam that is true drink ..

Slovenian – ThePeleta sthe otrov u carafe with a dragon, or the cup with a pestle to cook the Truth ..

Which to use? That depends on how mean you are and what you want to achieve:

German, French, Russian – I didn’t put these on the list above, because the result was near perfect. You might lose some of the poetry, but keeps all of the meaning. If you want to make it less fluid but equally clear, try Japanese or Korean.(Above paragraph in Korean, retranslated): German, French, Russian – because the result was near perfect, I did not put the following in the list above. You lose some of the city, but you can keep all the implications. If you want to make less fluid, however, equally clear, consider Japanese or Korean.

Finnish, Slovenian & Turkish- These one resulted in a few properly translated words and a lot of nonsense ones. This gives the translator a lot of doubt, but they know where the doubt lies. It feels like you were given half of the puzzle. Finnish seems to go extremely wonky when you have a lot of “the”s in the sentence.(Above paragraph in Finnish, retranslated): Finnish, Slovenian and Turkish, which together resulted in very few translated words share a lot of nonsense about them. This antaathe the translator a lot of doubts, but they know missäthe doubt lies. It seems as if you had puoletthe puzzle.

Marathi, Mongolian & Maori – These resulted in real words, but a nonsense sentence. The narrator is unsure about what to trust, and what to dismiss. It hints at a story, but the true meaning eludes you.(Above paragraph in Marathi, retranslated): Marathi, Mongolian and Maori – the real untranslated results, but only a foolish statement. Feature dismiss faith CEO, Chief Executive Officer and is unsure about. It hints at a story, but only one true meaning eludes.

Irish & Persian – These are deceptive, in that they sound like they are fully formed (and poetically beautiful), but the information might come out skewed. This feels like the perfect result to give a researcher who is overconfident- it sounds right, until they make their fatal error.(Above paragraph in Persian, retranslated): Irish and Persian – this is deceptive, in that they sound like they are fully formed (and beautiful poetic), but may come out skewed data. It feels so good to be a researcher’s right, it sounds overconfident-, either to his fatal error.

MANGLING METHOD #2

So, what can we do to mix it up even more? What if we went through a few other languages before we return back to English?

Result: The pellet with giftren her in flargon with the dragon, mein vessel with tubs have brew sqom is true.

You end up with a most of it being genuine, some of it sounding like it could mean something (“mein vessel,”) and some that is clearly messed up (mmm… sqom.)

Adding random letters helps with language that use the same alphabet, but you can also use mess with languages with different alphabets. For example, in the following Russian, I copy/pasted the “д” symbol in every few words.

You get: Osaddok sthe poison’s in butyldi with the dragon, but sodsud pestle has varevdo that is true.

Or, instead of messing with letters, why not mess with the spacing? In Traditional Chinese, hit the Enter button after every character, putting each character on its own line.

So: 与毒在

Becomes:
与
毒
在

This turns a clear translation into:

Chinese Traditional (with spaces): Versus Poison In Versus Dragon Of Liqueur Pot, But Versus Pestle Allow Device In Of Stars Grain Tool There is BREW This Are Really A.

To me, this sounds like a great way of faking hieroglyphs or translations other pictographic languages; each word has its own strong, individual meaning, but fails to connect to the others in a coherent sentence.

MANGLING METHOD #4

Translate from English into One language. Copy it.

Next, Paste it into the first box. Instead of using Detect Language but tell it that it’s a language SIMILAR to real one, and translate it to English.

Last week, I talked about peppering conversations with information so that any eavesdroppers can learn something useful. Today, I discuss how to improvise bartering and interrogations.

Before I do, let me share with you one of my favorite Improv exercises: the Bus Stop. These are the rules:

There is a bus stop with a short bench next to it. The bus is a very full bus (due to arrive soon), and it will only have enough room for one more person.

Player 1 starts on stage, sitting in the first seat at a bus stop. This person is first in line, and thus is the only person guaranteed to get a spot on the bus. Goal: Player 1 wants to stay in the first seat so they can get on the bus.

Player 2 enters the stage. This person is next in line for the bus, and will not get a spot on the bus, unless they can convince Player 1 to give up their seat. Goal: Player 2 wants that seat, so they will get the last seat on the bus.

There is a second seat next to the first one, which is “behind” it in the line for the bus. The Second player can sit there if they like.

Safety Rules: The second player cannot directly or indirectly touch Player 1, Player one’s chair or anything touching that person. They cannot cause Player 1 any real harm. (Threatening with pretend harm, such as revving up a pantomimed chainsaw, is perfectly fine.)

If/When Player 1 is convinced to give up, Player 2 sits in the #1 chair. Player 2 stops being the character they were, and becomes a new ordinary person. If there is another willing participant, that person is the new Player 2, and a new scene begins.

(There’s one more rule, but I’ll discuss it later)

That’s the set-up. If you’re playing with students new to improv, it might require showing them first, but they quickly get the hang of it. Players will quickly devise a wide range of ways to get Player 1 to move, but most of them fall into 2 tactics: the Carrot and the Stick.

The Carrot: Like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey, the player is tempted with something better than sitting in the Number 1 seat. Examples include showering a player with imaginary money, giving them the keys to a brand new car, and telling them that the pet store down the street is giving away free magic puppies.

The Stick: A form of negative reinforcement. The player is led to doubt whether the Number 1 seat is worth enduring their current situation.

As you can imagine, most players find the Stick far more fun, as they put on strange characters that are creepy, disgusting or downright terrifying.

So, the essential question is: what is the point of this game?

Answer: To see what happens when two people have conflicting objectives.

Two people want the seat, but only one can have it. Both people have an Objective, which gives the scene purpose (get the seat), energy (I want the seat now!), and a means of measuring success (I got the chair!)

Using this with rpgs: When running an adventure, it is important that you keep the Bus stop game in mind because both sides must have a stake in the outcome. If the opposition has no interest in the seat, there’s no conflict. If players have no interest, they won’t waste their time. If both sides want something they cannot share, that’s when conflict occurs.

Of course, this can be a literal thing (a MacGuffin like the Maltese Falcon or the Dragon Balls), but it can also be an intangible thing, like fame or love. A classic goal that shows up, especially in Superhero stories, is the Status Quo. Bad guys want to establish a status quo of pain, darkness and oppression, while the heroes try to maintain a status of truth, justice and the American way. Now, such finalized “there can be only one” goals are great for long term, campaign long objectives. For a simple bartering session or interrogation, though, it might not work. Before I tell you how to do it RIGHT, let me tell you how it’s often done wrong.

Back in college, I encountered a similar version of the Bus Stop game, simply called “The Chair.” Like Bus Stop, Person 1 sat in a chair, and Person 2 wanted to sit in the chair. No other rules were established, which led to the following problems:

Person 1 would refuse to move for any reason, and those the scene would drag out forever, went nowhere, and often concluded without any feeling of closure.

The only time Person 1 left the chair was when the person was physically removed (remember, no other rules,) which was a little scary to watch, and was quite unfulfilling on an intellectual level.

Now, why did Person 1 refuse to let go? Because they had no idea why they wanted the chair, or how important the chair was to them. They wanted the chair because they were told they wanted the chair- which is shallow and two-dimensional. More importantly, they didn’t know what the chair was worth to them, and thus the Carrot and the Stick have no effect- they only work if you can present something better / worse than possession of the chair.

Likewise, whenever I run the Bus Stop game, I’ll always have a student who refuses to leave the chair, no matter what the reason. A player could point an imaginary howitzer at them, and Player 1, 3 seconds away from annihilation, would still refuse to budge. This leads me to the last rule when I run a game of Bus Stop:

If Player 2 can give Player 1 a legitimate reason to leave the seat, Player 1 must move. (Legitimate is defined as “if this actually happened to you in real life, you would not stay.”)

This means that in most cases, Player 2 will always win (which, if you’re a teacher running a class, means more people get to play.) However, not all Player 2s win on their first attempt. Some of the shyer or less experienced players will attempt to creep out a player, but in an underwhelming way. They quickly learn that they have to up their game, and begin pushing the character to a greater and greater extreme. Likewise, some players attempt to bait someone with a Carrot, and when that fails, resort to the Stick.

How does this apply to rpgs: You, the GM, are Player 1. You have the thing that Player 2 wants. Nine times out of ten, Player 2 is going to get SOMETHING, be it information, assistance, or something shiny- if negotiations are completely closed and they walk away with nothing that can help them, then everyone just wasted their time. They need to get closer somehow, even if it’s the knowledge that they need something better to bargain with.

When improvising dialogue with a player, keep in mind two things:

The Carrot – What does the NPC want even more than the thing they have?

The Stick – What repulses the NPC so greatly that it surpasses their desire to hold on to the thing?

Your NPC can start at a ridiculously high asking price, and then bargain down from there. Alternatively, let the players offer greater and greater Carrots and increasingly threatening Sticks until the NPC is significantly motivated. (When in doubt, refuse the first offer.)

Interrogations: Remember that earlier rule “you can’t touch the player?” That might seem like a good rule for middle schoolers, but surely that doesn’t apply to your bastard-sword wielding murder hobos, right? Wrong!

In an interrogation, there are limits to what Sticks you can use (and that’s assuming you don’t have pesky things like “morals”). If the interrogated party has priceless information that only they can share, they know that the players can’t kill them, thus removing the harshest Stick available the players.

Bartering on the Fly

In a perfect world, you’ll have plenty of prep time to plan what the NPCs truly want, and what strange errands you can send them on before you will yield.

However, we don’t live in a perfect world, and you might find your party bartering with an NPC you created 38 seconds ago. In addition to all of the above advice, a few other ideas:

Money is pretty much worthless to players- it’s numbers on a page. Sure, you can accept it when bargaining, but it doesn’t create any dramatic tension. However, what if the NPC takes a liking to a minor piece of equipment that a player has? (Not their treasured heirloom, but something useful that they like.) Now the player is forced to choose: which is more important, their Wand of +2 Lightning, or the mission?

The exception to the above idea is if an NPC asks for an exorbitant amount of money in a very narrow window. For example, what about half-a-million dollars in 48 hours? Suddenly, the players feel the pressure to come up with a very large sum under possibly desperate circumstances. If you didn’t have time to plan an even trade for the players, this buys you time, and puts the emphasis on the players to come up with ways to scrounge up the money. Now they’re the ones brainstorming various side quests they can do to raise dough, rather than making you come up with it.

Get Personal – If the thing they are after is relatively insignificant (but you want to draw it out a little, so it’s not too easy,) sell it at the cost of a little public humiliation. Ask for a small favor from a character that is their least favorite thing to do. Make the raging berserker sit still, or the proud noble ask “pretty please with a cherry on top.” Make sure you differentiate between humiliating characters and humiliating people; some players have no problem singing and perform, but for others that’s a fate worse than death.

Mediator – To switch things up a little, make the players the impartial middle between two opposing forces, and make the players come up with the compromise. For example, they might need the help of a magistrate, but the magistrate is so busy settling a local quarrel over a stolen pig. If the players want help from the magistrate (they can’t wait), they must first act as the mediators between two feuding forces. This requires a little bit of prep work, but for a change, the GM doesn’t have to come up with what the terms of the compromise are; rather, the players must concoct a winning solution on their own.

Pay it Forward – If the players catch you completely unaware by their attempt to barter, let them have it- but like the Godfather, do it on the condition that they owe the enemy a favor in the future.